Updates · ChangelogWhat’s newin Watchbird.

New, more natural bird calls, and the open notch now closes smoothly.

Improved

• More natural bird calls. The calls in 1.2 sounded more like beeps than birds. Four new calls replace them.

  • Every kind of event keeps its own call: a rising call for approvals, questions and plans, a low call for errors, limits and stuck sessions, a trill when a task is done, and a morning call when a limit resets or the night-shift report is ready.
  • None is longer than 0.8 seconds, and they’re as loud as before.
  • The classic tones haven’t changed. If you use them, nothing sounds different.
• Closing the notch glides. Before, the open notch vanished almost at once and its content was simply cut off. Now it closes with a gentle start and a long glide, and its content draws together into the pill. Opening works as before.

The closed notch is back to its usual height, and you can drag the open notch too.

Improved

• Drag the open notch. The notch opens as soon as you hover over it, so the closed pill was hard to grab and moving the notch hardly worked. Now press anywhere on the open notch or on a card that isn’t a button, text field, list or scrolling area, and move the pointer a little: the notch closes and its pill follows your cursor, so you can drop it on a snap position or anywhere you like. A plain click there still does nothing.
• Hovering no longer opens the notch while you hold down the left mouse button.

Fixed

• The closed notch is low again. In 1.2 it had grown to 90 pixels instead of its usual 34.

Night shift, do not disturb, bird calls, a bird with a face and six more to collect, and a weekly recap to share.

New

• Night shift. Your agents work while you sleep. Needs a license.

  • In “New task”, choose Add to queue instead of starting right away. Watchbird keeps a queue per project folder, and it survives a restart.
  • The open notch has a new Queue tab. Drag tasks to change their order, edit a prompt, remove a task, or start one right now with ▶.
  • Start night shift asks for an end time (07:00 by default), whether the autopilot should run with your rules, whether you want phone messages, and how many tasks may run at once (1 per project and 2 in all, by default). After the end time no new task starts; running ones may finish.
  • Watchbird starts one task after another. A task waiting for your answer pauses only its own project; the others go on, and the request reaches your phone if you’ve set that up. Risky commands still wait for you.
  • An error gets one more try. A second error marks the task as failed and the shift moves on. After a usage limit the task keeps its place and continues when the limit resets. A task whose session doesn’t show up within 3 minutes counts as not started.
  • Your PC stays awake while the shift runs; the screen may turn off. A moon in the closed notch shows how many tasks are still open.
  • Morning report: it opens in the notch the first time you use the PC (unlocking counts), and goes to your phone if you asked for it. Every task is listed with its status, time and changed files. Show the changes opens the project in VS Code, where you see the diff; you can also jump to the terminal. Closing the report clears the finished tasks.
  • The history records when a shift started and ended, and the weekly recap says how many tasks ran in the night shift.
• Do not disturb. On a call? Watchbird keeps quiet. Free.

  • It switches on by itself during Windows “Do not disturb”, presentations, fullscreen apps and calls. A call means another app is using the microphone right now, for example Teams, Zoom, Webex, Discord or a browser. Watchbird only checks whether the microphone is in use, never what is said, and never opens it.
  • Or start it by hand: right-click the notch or the tray icon and choose 30 minutes, 1 hour or until tomorrow morning.
  • While it’s on, the notch doesn’t open by itself, there are no sounds and no Windows notifications. The bird holds still with a small grey badge that gets an amber ring when requests are waiting.
  • Automatic periods end 30 seconds after the call, presentation or fullscreen app is over, so it doesn’t flicker on and off.
  • Afterwards the notch opens once with a summary if anything happened, for example “While you were on a call: 2 requests are waiting, 3 tasks done”. History → Automatic lists every period.
  • Requests still reach your phone if you’ve set up Telegram or ntfy, and the autopilot keeps going.
  • Each trigger can be switched off under Settings → Notifications → Do not disturb. Windows 10 focus assist isn’t detected.
• Bird calls. Each kind of event has its own short call: a rising one for approvals, questions and plans, a low one for errors, limits and stuck sessions, a trill when a task is done, and a morning call when a limit resets or the night-shift report is ready. Free.

  • Choose the sound under Settings → Notifications → Sound: Bird calls, Classic tones (the tones from 1.0, or your own sound pack), Windows default (your Windows notification sound) or Off. Each event row plays its call when you press Play.
  • New installations start with bird calls. If you update from 1.0 or 1.1, you keep the classic tones until you switch.
  • Mute, quiet hours, fullscreen and do not disturb work as before.
• The bird got a face. Free; it follows “Animate the bird” and the Windows setting “Animation effects”.

  • Its eye tells you the rest: wide open while it waits, squinting with a slanted brow at an error or a limit, a happy arc when a task is done. Hold a file over the notch and it squints at it.
  • Coloured glow: a soft glow behind the bird in the colour of the state – blue at work, amber when an agent waits, red on errors, green when done. The open notch glows along its bottom edge too. You can switch it off (Settings → General → Appearance → Coloured glow).
  • While agents work, a small thinking bubble sits next to the bird, its dots lighting up one after another.
  • Bring your pointer close and the bird looks at it and tilts its head. Pass by on the left and it turns round.
• One bird for the closed and the open notch. The open notch’s header now shows the bird instead of the logo. When the notch opens, the bird flies from the pill up into the header, and back when it closes.
• Hatching intro. On the first start, an egg grows in the notch, cracks, and the bird hatches before the setup opens. It takes about 3 seconds; a click skips it. Watch it again under Settings → General → Appearance → Play the intro again. It doesn’t play with Windows animation effects off.
• Bird collection. Six more birds join the sparrow just by using Watchbird. Free.

  • Sparrow: always there. Owl: comes by itself at night (10 pm to 6 am) and during the night shift. Robin: after 100 approvals. Kingfisher: after 50 finished tasks. Woodpecker: 7 days in a row (and it pecks harder). Raven: after 10 resumes after a limit. Hummingbird: after 1,000 approvals.
  • When you earn a bird, the old one flies off and the new one lands in the notch, then a card offers Use and Share. Share copies a picture of your new bird and saves it in Pictures\Watchbird. The moment waits while you’re busy with a request, a new task or do not disturb.
  • Settings → General → Appearance → Your bird shows the whole collection: locked birds as silhouettes with their goal and your progress (for example “38 / 50”).
  • “Owl at night” can be switched off. Seasonal hats are on by default: a Christmas hat from 1 to 26 December and a party hat at New Year.
  • Everything is counted on your PC only. On the first start of 1.2, Watchbird counts what your history already knows, so birds you’ve earned before unlock quietly.
• Weekly recap. History has a new Week view: tasks done, approvals, agent time, the most used agent, the estimated API value and your days in a row, with a bar for each day from Monday to Sunday. Go back to earlier weeks with the arrows. Needs a license, like usage.

  • Save as image puts a 1200 × 630 picture in Pictures\Watchbird; Copy image puts it on the clipboard. Project names only go on it if you tick the box.
  • The API value of weeks that started before 1.2 is incomplete; it fills up with your first weeks on 1.2.
• Help & support. Settings → General → Help & support writes an e-mail to support@ut-systems.com with one click and reminds you to copy the diagnostics first. support@ut-systems.com is the new support address.

Improved

• Smoother opening. The notch’s size, corners and edges now change shape together, and opening settles with a slight bounce.
• The phone keeps getting requests during do not disturb. In 1.0 and 1.1, do not disturb from the tray silenced the phone too. You can switch this back under Settings → Notifications → Do not disturb.
• The open notch’s header makes room when space is tight: first the app name next to the bird goes, then “New task” shrinks to a plus, so all four tabs always fit.
• The privacy policy now describes the new data, all kept on your PC: the night-shift queue, the microphone check and the bird counters.

Fixed

• The notch no longer flashes when it opens or closes. Before, the new content could show for a moment in the wrong place before it faded in.

The Microsoft Store build of 1.1, with two small fixes. The Store had already received a 1.1.0 package in a draft submission, so the number went up; everything in 1.1 is part of 1.1.1.

Fixed

• The bird stays visible after it appears. With animations on, the bird and its badge could vanish a moment after they showed up.
• The tabs in the open notch’s header no longer slide under the “New task” button after the notch opens again.

A bird in the notch, the autopilot with rules, auto-resume after usage limits and warnings for stuck sessions.

New

• The bird. A small bird in the closed notch shows what your agents are doing – no reading needed. Free.

  • It pecks while agents work, hops when an approval, a question or a plan waits for you, shakes itself at an error or a limit, flaps its wings when a task is done and sleeps when everything is finished. After a minute asleep it shrinks back to a dot; when an agent gets going, the dot becomes the bird’s eye.
  • Small badges say what’s up: ! for an approval, ? for a question, a list for a plan, × for an error and an hourglass for a limit.
  • Hover over the resting notch to see the bird. “Drop by now and then” (off by default) lets it look out for two seconds about every ten minutes.
  • Switch the bird or its animation off under Settings → General → Appearance. It holds still in fullscreen apps and when Windows animation effects are off. Without the bird you get the classic status icon.
• Program icons on every session. A small icon shows where each session runs – Windows Terminal, VS Code, WezTerm, the Claude app and others – taken from the program you have installed. Free.
• Autopilot. Routine allows itself. Needs a license.

  • Start it from the open notch (or Settings → Rules & automation) for 15, 30 or 60 minutes. While it runs, Watchbird allows what your “allow in autopilot” rules allow; everything else still asks, and risky commands always do.
  • A green countdown pill sits in the closed notch. Click it to end the autopilot. It never survives a restart.
  • One click adds the recommended autopilot rules: file changes inside the project, and commands that only read, build or test (git status, diff and log, ls, cat, grep, npm test, npm run build, dotnet, cargo and go build and test, pytest and more). Delete the ones you don’t want; “Restore” brings them back.
• Rules with actions. Settings → Rules & automation is a new page.

  • Each rule is Allow, Allow in autopilot, Always ask or Deny, for commands, file changes, MCP tools or any tool, for all projects or one, and for all agents or one. Use * as a wildcard: “npm test *” also matches “npm test”.
  • Order: deny wins, then the fixed block list, then “always ask”, then allow.
  • Chained commands (&&, ||, ;, |) need an allow rule for every part. Substitutions, redirections into files and background jobs are never allowed by a rule.
  • File patterns match paths inside the project; files outside it only match rules with an absolute path.
  • Claude Code’s own “always allow” rules are shown read-only on the same page. Claude Code applies them itself; change them in Claude Code (/permissions).
  • Rules need a license, as approvals in the notch do.
• Auto-resume after a usage limit. Limit reached? It carries on by itself. On by default; needs a license.

  • When Claude Code or Codex stops on its usage limit, the limit card shows when the limit resets, with a countdown and Cancel. The pill says “continues at 15:01”.
  • One minute after the reset, Watchbird types “Continue where you left off.” into the session’s terminal. You can change the message under Settings → Rules & automation.
  • It only types into terminals – never into the Claude app or an editor extension – and only after two minutes without keyboard or mouse input, so it never types into your work. It waits up to 30 minutes for that.
  • Only resets within the next 6 hours are continued. Otherwise, or when it can’t type, Watchbird lets you know when the limit has reset.
• Stuck sessions. Watchbird notices when an agent seems stuck. Needs a license.

  • It warns when a working session has had no activity for 10 minutes, when one command has been running for 30 minutes, or when the agent makes the same call with the same input 3 times in a row. Long builds and tests only count after the longer time.
  • You get a card, a sound, a Windows notification while the notch is hidden, and a phone message if you like. The session row shows “Stuck?”.
  • Change the times under Settings → Rules & automation.
• Two new events in Settings → Notifications: “Looks stuck” and “Limit reset”, each with its own sound, notch and phone switch.
• History → Automatic lists every automatic decision – by a rule, the autopilot or “allow everything in this session” – with its rule and the command, plus every resume and skipped resume after a limit and when the autopilot started and ended. Kept for 90 days on your PC.

Improved

• Your always-allow rules from 1.0 carry over as allow rules. The rule list moved from Settings → Agents to Settings → Rules & automation.
• Every rm -rf is now on the fixed block list, whatever it deletes. You can still allow it once in the notch, but never by a rule, the autopilot, “always allow” or from the phone.
• Watchbird recognizes sessions in the Claude desktop app and never types into them; follow-ups for those sessions are copied so you can paste them.
• Two sessions with the same title (for example on the same branch) are told apart: the start of their first prompt is added in the list.

The first release: a small black notch at the top of your Windows screen that shows what your AI coding agents are doing and lets you answer them without switching windows.

New

• Ten agents. Watchbird works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Qwen Code, Devin, Cursor, Factory Droid, Gemini CLI and Cline.

  • Approve in the notch: Claude Code, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Qwen Code and Devin.
  • Cursor supports shell and MCP approvals, Factory Droid approvals with an opt-in switch.
  • Gemini CLI and Cline show when they are waiting for you and take you to the terminal or editor.
  • Questions and plans can be answered in the notch for Claude Code and OpenCode. Other agents show that they’re waiting and take you to their terminal.
  • Claude Code also works in the Claude desktop app. Agents running in WSL work too.
  • The agents themselves are installed separately.
• The notch. A small black notch at the top of the screen shows the most important state at a glance, for example “Claude needs approval · 2 waiting”.

  • It opens when you hover over it, or on click if you prefer. Requests that need you always open it.
  • Top left, top center, top right or anywhere you like – drag it and it snaps into place, or float it freely and it remembers the spot per screen. Three sizes: compact, normal and large.
  • With several monitors it stays on one display or follows your mouse.
  • It hides in fullscreen apps and games; a small dot in the corner shows when an agent is waiting. It can also hide while no agent is running.
  • Starts with Windows (you can turn that off), and lives in the tray.
• Sessions. Open the notch to see every running agent: status, project, terminal, how long it has run, changed files, subagents and how full its context is. Each session is named after its git branch, or after the start of its first prompt.

  • One click (or Ctrl+Alt+J) jumps to the session’s terminal or editor window – in WezTerm and tmux down to the exact pane. Windows Terminal, VS Code, Cursor and other terminals are supported.
  • Finished sessions get a short summary card; failed ones an error card where you can copy the error or resume the session.
• Approvals with diff. When an agent wants to edit a file or run a command, the notch opens with a card: the diff or the command, where it runs, and what else is waiting.

  • Allow once, deny (optionally with a note telling the agent what to do instead), always allow it for this project, or allow everything in this session.
  • Risky commands (rm -r on /, ~ or *, git push --force, git reset --hard, formatting a drive, curl | sh and more) are marked, are never approved automatically and are never offered “always allow”.
  • Rather answer in the terminal? One click takes you there. If you don’t answer within 10 minutes (you can change that), the agent asks in its terminal again.
• Questions and plans. Pick an answer with the number keys or type your own; questions where you pick several answers, and several questions in a row, work too. Read the whole plan (also in a larger window), approve it, approve and let the agent auto-accept its edits, or keep planning with your feedback.
• New tasks from anywhere. Press Ctrl+Alt+Space, pick the agent, folder and mode (ask before edits, plan first or auto-accept edits), choose Windows Terminal, PowerShell or WSL, paste a screenshot and go.
• Follow-ups. Send a running session a follow-up from the notch. If the agent is still working, it’s queued and arrives when the agent is ready; if it’s waiting, Watchbird types it into its terminal.
• Drag & drop. Drop files onto the notch to hand them to a running session or start a new session with them. Images go in as images, text files as a path reference.
• From your phone. Optional, and off until you set it up.

  • With your own Telegram bot you get approvals, questions and plans with buttons: allow or deny, pick an answer, approve a plan – or reply with your own answer, plan feedback or a follow-up. After you answer, the message says so. You also get a message when a task is done or stops with an error.
  • Risky commands can only be approved at the PC.
  • With the ntfy app you get notifications only (no buttons), through ntfy.sh or your own server.
  • By default only while you’re away from the PC, and only titles – agent, project and what it wants. With “Titles + command” also the command or file name, never diffs or file contents.
• Usage limits. The Usage tab shows Claude and Codex plan windows (5 hours and week) with their reset times, and the requests Gemini CLI made today. Watchbird warns you at 80 %.

  • Context and tokens per session, with an estimated API value at public list prices (you can hide amounts).
  • Claude Code can show a status line with model, context and cost, if you don’t have one of your own.
• History. A History tab shows today at a glance – sessions, tasks finished, approvals, errors, active time – and your finished sessions by day, with jump or resume. Stored only on your PC for 90 days; you can turn it off or clear it.
• Notifications and sounds. For each event (needs approval, question, plan ready, finished, error) choose a sound, whether the notch opens and whether your phone gets it.

  • Five built-in tones or your own sound pack, volume, quiet hours (10 pm to 7 am by default), and do not disturb from the tray.
  • Silent while you look at the agent’s terminal, and in fullscreen apps and presentations.
  • While the notch is hidden, events arrive as silent Windows notifications; click one to open it.
• Shortcuts for everything. Ctrl+Alt+Y allow once, Ctrl+Alt+N deny, Ctrl+Alt+A always allow, Ctrl+Alt+Space new task, Ctrl+Alt+J jump, Ctrl+Alt+H show or hide the notch, Ctrl+Alt+↓ focus the waiting card, Ctrl+Alt+→ next waiting request. Change them under Settings → General → Shortcuts; Watchbird warns about clashes.
• Easy setup. A short setup finds your agents (also in WSL), connects them through their official hook settings and asks where the notch should sit and whether you want phone messages. Every config file is backed up first. Settings → Agents removes Watchbird’s entries again with one click. Codex asks you once to trust the hooks (/hooks).
• If Watchbird isn’t running, your agents ask in the terminal as usual. Nothing gets stuck.
• Private by design. No account, no server of its own, no telemetry. The agents talk to Watchbird through a local pipe on your PC; prompts, code and diffs stay there. Watchbird only goes online for the usage limits of Claude and Codex (with the login you already have), for phone messages you set up, and for the Store license and updates.
• Four languages. English, German, Spanish and French – or the same as Windows.
• Accessible. Screen reader names, full keyboard use, and fewer animations when Windows asks for that.
• Support. “Copy diagnostics” (Settings → General) puts a report for support requests on the clipboard; tokens, chat IDs and license keys are hidden.
• Trial and license. Try everything free for 15 days, then buy it once – no subscription, all 1.x updates included. Without a license, the session list, status and the jump to the terminal stay free; answering in the notch, new tasks, drag & drop, the phone and usage need a license.
• Runs on Windows 10 (21H2 or later) and Windows 11. ARM-based PCs run it through emulation.